


Forgive My Body This Failure

by makbaes (gentlemindedlostgirl)



Series: NCT Supernatural Universe [4]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Drunk Driving, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Prophetic Dreams, Prophetic Visions, Psychic Ten, Werewolf Johnny, Werewolves, Witch Ten, Witches, the drunk driving is mentioned but not much--peep the notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 20:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16125809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gentlemindedlostgirl/pseuds/makbaes
Summary: Ten could handle most things, he figured. He could handle the visions that came to him, could catalogue the information and decide if he needed to save it for later or if it could afford to be casted aside. Some days were easier than others. Some days were hard. Ten had gone from no visions in two weeks to five in the last two hours. The fifth vision was the worst he had received in a long time.(AKA being a psychic comes with burdens, and Johnny is ever patient)





	Forgive My Body This Failure

**Author's Note:**

> The title and opening quote come from a poem called "Vigil" by Blas Falconer, I highly recommend you read it! He's an incredible poet. 
> 
> Content note: there's mentions of car accidents due to drunk driving. If this is potentially upsetting, skip any italicized parts in this work. But the mention is brief and not detailed.
> 
> This is another oneshot in my supernatural universe, this one takes place after my Winil social media AU and JUST before DoJaeYong social media au. So for timeline references: Johnny and Ten are not engaged yet! If you want to read either au, find them here https://bit.ly/2NM5GiM and here https://bit.ly/2DPIUST
> 
> For reference for those who haven't read the aus: Taeil pulled something risky that I won't spoil about three months before this oneshot. It was dangerous enough that it made Johnny's life just a little bit more difficult. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading! Please feel free to leave comments as they keep me chugging along writing out this universe.

_“Air fills the body_

_The way light fills_

_the house at night_

_so those outside know_

_that someone is living there._

_What pain will you tend to now if not yours?”_

 

Ten could handle most things, he figured. He could handle the visions that came to him, could catalogue the information and decide if he needed to save it for later or if it could afford to be casted aside. Some days were easier than others. There were times when he would go weeks without even the inkling of a vision. Those times were nice, if quiet. They meant that he could live in his present and do the things he needed--train his apprentices, build his coven, go on silly dates with his new boyfriend.

Some days were hard. Ten had gone from no visions in two weeks to five in the last two hours. The mundane ones he had started with were fine--a student somewhere that wasn’t here taking a test on who knew what. A girl finding out her parents were getting her a puppy. But the final three had been progressively more harrowing. A woman finding out her husband of ten years had been cheating on her for seven of them. A young man having to bury his mother. But the fifth vision was the worst he had received in a long time.

He had been getting himself a glass of water--purely on Johnny’s request, because his boyfriend had been concerned about how quiet Ten had been and felt the need to look after him. And then his eyes went milky and the glass fell from his hand, shattering to the floor as Ten collapsed to his knees following.

_He was some ways away from the scene this time, standing on the other side of a road. It was chilly but not cold--this didn’t seem to be too distant into the future. A couple of weeks at longest. Despite his distance from the scene he could hear the way the man’s words slurred as he buckled a young girl into her carseat despite her protests. Ten’s vision-self followed as they drove down the road, swerving as they went._

_He could see the car that was coming their way before they did. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out._

When Ten returned to his own world--not the future of a little girl he didn’t know and never would--Johnny was pulling Ten into his arms and petting his hair away from his face. “Ten, baby, breathe,” he said. Ten hadn’t realized he was hyperventilating. His throat hurt and it registered for a moment that while he may not have screamed in the vision, he very well may have lead out a blood-curdling one in here.

“I _can’t!”_ Ten screamed, body heaving as he attempted to catch his breath, crumpled in Johnny’s lap on the floor. He was trembling, his mind racing as he replayed the crash in his head _again, and again, and again._ He was hyper-aware of how he must look to his lover, a fragile version of the usually quick-witted and unaffected person he prided himself on being. He could feel tears and snot wetting Johnny’s jeans and shame washed over his chest but he couldn’t do anything about it. “Johnny she’s--if she goes--”

“Whatever it is, you don’t need to stop it,” Johnny said softly, his voice almost frustratingly calm and low as he pet Ten’s hair. And Ten’s first impulse was to lash out, to jerk out from Johnny’s touch and yell at him for not _getting it._ If he could _save_ someone, _shouldn’t_ he?

But he also knew that Johnny was right. That even if he knew who that girl had been--which he didn’t--or how to find her--which he didn’t--he couldn’t keep her from her fate. The universe did not like to be messed with. Butterfly effect. Fuck.

“She’ll die,” Ten grieved, hands shaking, clinging feebly to Johnny’s shirt. “She’s a kid, Johnny, she’s younger than Jisung. If I just--”

“No,” Johnny said, his arms wrapping a little tighter around Ten as he felt the younger’s body tense at his words. “You couldn’t stop it,” he said quietly. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to save anyone but yourself.”

Ten slumped in Johnny’s arms. He hadn’t considered that. He hadn’t considered that he didn’t need to be the savior--or, rather, that he was a body that deserved to be saved.

“What good are these stupid visions if I can’t _do_ anything with them,” Ten cursed, sniffing and wiping his nose on his sleeve as his breathing calmed and he sat up straight.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. “I don’t think we need to know.”

Ten resented that. It was his job to know. If the psychic couldn’t _know,_ then what good was he? What use did he have in the universe if he couldn’t use his magic to achieve some sort of end? Wasn’t it irresponsible to not do some good? Was it so bad that he wanted to do everything in his weird, fucked-up power to heal? Strictly speaking, healing wasn’t his job. But wasn’t something he prided in his coven was that they were all talented in everything? Ten’s head hurt. He rubbed the heels of his palm into his temples in an attempt to ground himself.

“I hate it,” Ten shuddered, curling himself into Johnny.

“No you don’t,” Johnny said before placing a kiss on top of Ten’s head. And he was right. Even on days like this, when he felt completely powerless and weak and worthless, he could never actually hate his power. He valued it far too much for that. But he did have his moments where he wished he didn’t have to be a prophet. At least for a day. What he wanted more than anything in the world was one day of quiet where even if he didn’t have a vision, he wasn’t also worrying about visions he’d already had.

“Let’s go to bed,” Johnny said, gathering Ten up in his arms and trying to carry him away and Ten fought for a fraction of a moment before allowing his boyfriend to carry him away. He couldn’t _really_ have struggled away even if he wanted to--goddamn werewolf strength.

“I have work to do,” Ten said as he wrapped his arms around Johnny’s neck in order to keep himself steady.

“Not today you don’t,” Johnny said as he carried Ten up the stairs. “Kun can handle lessons. You don’t have anyone coming in for readings today. You’re allowed to take the afternoon off. You and I are going to lay in bed and do _nothing._ Maybe we’ll binge watch something. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“I love you,” Ten said as Johnny lay him down on the bed. His chest still felt heavy with the weight of his knowledge but his head felt a little less foggy and that was progress at the very least. Anything was better than the initial panic.

Johnny was good for many things. He was good for a laugh, for a comforting word, for endless support and smiles and love. Another thing Johnny happened to be amazing for was holding Ten. Ten would always marvel in the way that Johnny seemed to wrap around him perfectly.

Ten had spent almost twenty three years trying to sort out how he could calm down the random anxieties that came through his body when he had a particularly distressing vision. He had never sorted out how to do it on his own. He wanted to hit himself when he realized that it had been because it was _impossible_ to do on his own--by nature he needed Johnny Seo to keep him warm. He had half a mind to be angry about that. He had spent his whole life taking care of himself--how dare Johnny waltz into his life and complicate that?

But then he took a breath and relaxed into Johnny’s arms and he told that half of his mind to shut the hell up. Because the other half of his head was _quiet_ and that was not an easy thing to come by for the young psychic. And god, he needed to at least try and enjoy it while he still could.

“Thank you,” Ten said softly as he melted into the bedsheets. Johnny was on his phone--probably texting Kun or Taeil or whoever needed to be running things in their absence. “I’m sorry.”

“No apologizing,” Johnny chastised affectionately. “You don’t need to be sorry for needing someone.”

Ten wanted to argue that he _did._ He had built this coven all alone with nothing but his two hands and a dream. And he had only ever _vaguely_ known what he was doing, but he had been doing it nonetheless--and doing it _well_ and he’d never needed to ask for help before. He’d never considered that maybe...he had _needed_ to, but had made things harder for himself in the denying of it.

Johnny changed that for him. Hell, Johnny changed _everything_ for him to the point that it was dawning on Ten more and more every day why the universe had decided the two of them needed to occupy the same space. Because how tragic would it have been if they hadn’t? Ten didn’t even _want_ to think about how sad it would have been--Johnny in Chicago, and Ten in Bangkok, their hearts in the wrong chests but never able to swap back because it took the strangest set of circumstances to bring them both _here_ in Seoul.

And how it would have been almost more tragic if they had both ended up in Seoul, but Ten had not been a psychic. He liked to think that even if he hadn’t had that vision about marrying Johnny Seo, he still would have fallen in love with him. But the vision certainly helped--it moved things faster along. At least on Ten’s end. It meant that by the first time they had met Ten was already about halfway head over heels.

Sometimes he didn’t mind being a psychic after all.

“Screw you for being the perfect person,” Ten chastised, nothing but pure affection in his tone. “I must look a goddamn mess right now.”

“You look ethereal,” Johnny countered with a smile.

“Fuckin liar,” Ten laughed.

“You always look ethereal,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t known you were a witch, I would have taken you for one of the fae.”

“Not soft enough to be one of the fae,” Ten hummed. “I think it’s a prerequisite.”

“You can be soft,” Johnny said. “When you’re not trying to partially terrify every fourth person you meet.”

“You of all people understand the need to be taken seriously,” Ten said as he gave Johnny’s nose a gentle poke.

Johnny _did_ understand--it was something about being werewolf pack leader that made him want to rip his hair out. The deadly combination of him being so young and foreign made it so that he could hardly get a word in edgewise at council meetings. Even after he had put his foot down with them after Taeil’s stunt--he had hoped so deeply that they would take him more seriously after that. But it had only lasted two months before they were back to treating him like he was a naive child and not someone just as capable as they were. But where Ten saw obstacles like this and made himself a hundred times larger and louder to prove them wrong, Johnny shrunk and bowed his head because it was easier than arguing and stewed in silence. But Ten’s fervor was one of the many things the young werewolf admired about his boyfriend.

While Ten wished Johnny would stand up for himself, he also admired what a gentle giant he was. Ten had always been too many sharp edges, Johnny wasn’t. He looked so large but Ten was half convinced his size was merely to accommodate his giant heart. It was a disgusting thought, not one he would ever share with Johnny. But he could keep it for himself.

“I’m gonna do something really nice for you later,” Ten hummed as he pulled the covers closer around them. He wanted to thank Johnny for being ever patient with him--for being with him and understanding him the best that he could when he already had a million other things on his plate to worry about.

“Such as?” Johnny asked, though there was a lilt in his tone that let Ten know that he already had a couple of choice things in mind.

“Don’t be gross,” Ten said, giving him a nudge as if he too hadn’t been entertaining those ideas. That was separate from all of this, though. “I mean like a cute dumb relationship thing. Like make you dinner or something.”

“I’m not letting you set off the fire alarm,” Johnny teased.

“Then we’ll order your favorite from takeout or something, just let...let _me_ be the sweet doting boyfriend for a little while when this...whatever this is washes over? It’s your turn. You deserve it.”

“I guess I can do to let myself be pampered,” he teased.

Ten rolled his eyes and pressed a gentle kiss to Johnny’s lips. He hadn’t decided what he was going to do for Johnny yet--well, besides a few more choice things--but whatever it was, Johnny deserved infinitely more than it.

But maybe takeout and cupcakes from the bakery down the road would have to do for now. Until Ten could hand Johnny the world on a silver platter.


End file.
